WEXFORD LAUNCH – JOIN US!
Short story published in The Irish Times
Click here, or on the image to read a short story from Ferenji,
published on The Irish Times website.
Helena Interviewed on ARENA
It was great to be able to talk live to Seán Rocks on ARENA last night, Irish national radio’s premier arts show … for anyone who’d like to have a listen back to me interviewed about my book, Ferenji –
here’s the direct live link to my interview:
MY WEEK: from The Sunday Times
Here’s a piece from The Sunday Times newspaper, giving an account of “MY WEEK”. Hard to capture – between the election of a clown as sad as Trump and the loss of a king as fine as Cohen – but here goes!
“The author enjoys ‘high mirth and low bitching’ over a US election
that makes her question if autumn is the only sign the clocks have turned back.”
Never liked it, autumn. And never more so than the day the clocks go back. Mostly, I resist accepting it until the last moment possible. It finally has to be let in, with its crisp, chill mornings, afternoon-nights and grounded leaves. All supposedly natural signs of death before rebirth. I’m not usually such a pessimist, but, for me, this morning is a shady whisper of darkness on the way. (more…)
Leonard Cohen: He’s our man
This is my contribution to a piece by Martin Doyle with tributes from John Kelly, Sara Baume, Peter Murphy, Evelyn Conlon and more. For all writers’ contributions, please click this link.
It wasn’t until the mid-nineties, a decade into the study of Tibetan Buddhism, that I began to listen to the music of Leonard Cohen. A beautiful Chinese artist friend would have no other soundtrack as she painted. She said he transported her to a richer place than the blank, cold studio she was working in. I only began to hear Cohen with her, then after she moved away I heard him more clearly by myself on a Buddhist retreat in Vermont. Along pathways between pinewood trees and incensed shrine rooms, I played him constantly – in defiance of the strict rules of the monastery (no “entertainment”). The experience was intensified by my fascination at Cohen himself having just retreated from the craziness of the music business to a Zen monastery in California.
Such respite from the turbulence and uncertainty of daily living in today’s world is always ephemeral. Even Cohen came back into the spotlight when he began to tour again in recent years. But his music is, in a way, is like a retreat. It takes you out of the fray and into aural balm and wit and darkness that even while dark, is calming and sensual. (more…)
HOT PRESS Profile by Anne Sexton
A piece in Hot Press magazine by Anne Sexton, with photo by Paula Nolan and review by Olaf Tyaransen. Below see an extract from the interview – the rest in Hot Press magazine, available in all Irish newsagents right now!
LIFE DURING WARTIME – INTERVIEW BY ANNE SEXTON
An arts journalist and performer, Helena Mulkerns lived and worked in Paris and New York before joining the UN as a press officer.
It was her ten years with UN peacekeeping missions that inspired her collection, Ferenji and other stories. Ferenji means ‘foreigner’ in old Arabic and Persian. As the name suggests, Mulkerns’ stories centre on the lives of foreign aid workers in various conflict and post-conflict zones. (more…)
Ferenji Book Trailer
